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Twitter TV ratings are finally coming to the UK. Back in 2012, Nielsen and Twitter established metrics for social TV ratings and released it to TV networks. TV analytics allow networks and ad agencies to measure engagement surrounding various shows. We have become a multi-screen society – how many of you use your phone while watching TV? I know I do. With HBO successes such as Game Of Thrones, online conversation about TV shows has increased dramatically over the past two years. The discussions that people have online about TV shows (and often during TV shows) are of great interest to content producers and marketers.

In October, Twitter announced a partnership with Kantar Media and developed the TV ratings tools for the UK. Some of the metrics available to UK networks and agencies include:

Unique authors – the people tweeting, and their affinity to brands, channels and programs

Unique audience – measuring the number of individuals who viewed tweets related to individual programs/shows

Impressions – the total number of times that a tweet or retweet about a particular program has been seen

Data like this can be key to identifying the right audience to target, what kind of ads to go for and what time to advertise.

It’s Not All About Quality TV

Of course, there’s more to targeting than just posting your updates or ads during everyone’s favourite shows – paying attention to trends, spotting the next big viral TV sensation or reacting quickly to live TV events can help you steal a march on the competition. Recently, two of the biggest TV moments to gain traction on Twitter were unexpected: Lifetime’s critically reviled Aaliyah biopic was a huge hit on Twitter largely because of the criticism, while this NFL moment got tens of thousands talking about the sport and tuning in:

Keeping an eye on current events (and the TV listings) can help you fine tune your timing, capture the zeitgeist and capitalise on online happenings.

Real Time Marketing with Video

It’s never been easier to jump on the real-time marketing bandwagon, incorporate video into your efforts, and yes, you can make them quickly with Viddyad. Did we mention it’s also free to create and share your video ad?

Like this:

Whether it’s a company overview or a short 15 second product ad, having video content on your website should be a priority. Here’s some top tips for the different types of video you can use to improve your site.

General explainer video

Bear in mind that attention spans are not as long as they once were, so create the video in a way that’s as engaging as possible. If you’re selling a product or a people-orientated service, it’s best to have the face of your company in the video so users are drawn to them. They should be between 30-60 seconds long and contain some sort of a product demo, whether through static images or a video of the product working (remember you can upload your own video clips to our editor).

Your video should:

Introduce the problem that your product solves

Answer the problem with your company’s solution

Include a quick overview of your product/service

Have a clear call to action

Product video

If you have more than one product or line of products, keep the videos short and to the point. Try out these tips for your product ad:

15 seconds

2-3 points on product benefits

Clear call to action

Case studies and testimonials

Get some quotes from your favourite customers and stick them in a neat video presentation to boost your reputation.

Testimonials can be very useful to new business who want to establish trust:

Ask your customers for quotes – most businesses will happily give referrals as it also works as a promotion for them

Use company logos and/or photos (with permission!) in the video so it looks professional

Include facts – “sales increased by XX%”

Video background

One of the emerging trends in web design is the video background. This usually involves a simple repeating video loop in the background on the landing page of a website. A slick video can bring your site to life and catch the user’s attention

To get the most out of a video background, consider using the following guidelines:

Keep the content simple – too much action might distract from the focus of your webpage

Use soft colors and contrast these with the action buttons on your page

Make it fast – Consider using a CDN for delivery and make sure mobile users aren’t left hanging

Tutorials and guides

Want to keep your customer’s attention while explaining a feature of your product or website? Try using a video:

Use screenshots or video of your product or website

Keep the steps simple and give the user time to process instructions

Add a friendly voiceover to help guide the user

Event videos

Having a big event?

You can announce it in style with a video:

Use footage or pictures from previous events

Find stock representative of your event

Include the location and the date in your call to action at the end

Above all, keep the focus of your videos simple. It’s good to experiment, as every website and product is unique, but make sure you play to your strengths and find the video style that’s right for you.

Creating a video ad online is easy – but how can you make your commercial really come to life and stand out from the crowd? Check out four of our top tips below to see the ways you can customize your video and make an impact.

1. Transitions

A transition is the moment when one image or video clip switches to another. Different effects can draw the viewer in and set the tone for your ad. We give you 10 transitions to choose from.

Tips:

If you have a lot of images in your video, use an occasional zoom or slide so they don’t appear too static.

If you have a lot of video clips, use fade to give it a professional touch.

Hover over each transition to get a quick preview of the effect.

2. Text Styles

The text of a video is where you really sell your message to the consumer. With Viddyad, thousands of different text combinations are possible using our styles dashboard.

Tips:

Have consistency on each screen – stick with the same fonts and colors.

If you have a colorful or busy image or clip, try adding a background bar to make your text stand out.

There are three text fields on each screen – make use of them and avoid crowding text in one text field, spread it out.

3. Text Animations

So, you’ve found the right font and color, and tweaked your message to perfection. What next? How about picking a great text animation to really grab the viewer’s attention? We give our users a range of choices for text animations. Choose how your text appears and disappears from the screen, as well as what emphasis is placed on it while it’s there.

Tips:

Take the tone of your video into consideration, if it’s a 10 second video highlighting a special offer, try using the zoom and expand animations to highlight this.

If your video is being used for a presentation, simpler animations such as fade and soft-edge may be most appropriate.

Experiment with different animations – click the “Play Animation” button to get a quick preview of how your text will appear.

4. Logo Screen Customization

This is the most important part of your video – the final message screen. It’s the last thing the viewer sees, so make sure it stands out.

Tips:

Give a really clear call to action. For example, if it’s a sales video and you have a direct phone number, prompt the viewer to call and use the number instead of your website. This will increase your conversions.

You can adjust the size of your logo to make it as big or a small as you wish – just leave room for your CTA (call to action).

Above all, remember to experiment! You can change the timings, add filters, reorder content and much more. Your video preview will be ready in just a few seconds, so try out different effects to get the style of video that really suits your business, product or campaign.

Very often we’re asked what the best place is to host a video ad – Vimeo or YouTube? Which one is better for marketing? Which is more professional? While YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, Vimeo is focused on smaller audiences , the creative aspect of video creation and hosting, plus some users prefer their clean design to YouTube.

Below, we’ve done a comparison on each of the most important factors you should consider when uploading your video to both sites.

Users - Winner: YouTube

With YouTube being the world’s second largest search engine, it has significantly more users than Vimeo and thus, YouTube has more reach. YouTube has 800 million unique visitors while Vimeo has around 70 million. A YouTube video will typically rank above Vimeo because YouTube is owned by Google.

Appearance - Winner: Vimeo

Vimeo allows more customization than YouTube. Some thumbnails from your YouTube video may not reflect the best content on your video, but Vimeo allows you to choose a thumbnail so your video has the best possible appearance before it’s played.

Search – Winner: Vimeo

Below are the search algorithms for each site. Vimeo wins hands down.

YouTube

Relevance

Upload date

View count

Rating

Vimeo

Most relevant

Newest

Oldest

Most played

Most commented

Most liked

Alphabetical

Channels/Collections/Playlists - Draw

Both sites allow users to curate video playlists. On YouTube you can curate playlists, with Vimeo, it’s slightly more advanced. Your collections consist of Channels, Groups and Albums. You can also customize each channel’s appearance on Vimeo – handy!

Advertising – Winner: YouTube

It’s possible to advertise on both sites, but again, YouTube will have to be the winner here as they have more reach with their advertising options.

Quality - Draw

Vimeo was the original HD video hosting site. Now that YouTube has enabled HD and offered users a choice (handy for mobile users), it’s pretty much equal to Vimeo in quality.

So while it’s clear that there’s no overall winner here, you may still find that one of them will suit your output, your budget, or your campaigns better than the other based on the facts above. Why not spend some time with both services to see how they fit your needs? Of course, if you need a video, you can head on over to viddyad.com to get creating ;)

Earlier this year, Facebook released a new advanced video content measurement dashboard as well as a new campaign structure. With both of these additions, it’s never been easier to run and measure Facebook advertising. And so, we have put together some quick tips to help you get started.

Facebook’s Ad Structure

Campaigns

With any new advertising approach it’s important to have your objectives set out from the start, e.g. driving website traffic, promoting an offer, or increasing brand recognition. Once you have this locked down, the rest is pretty easy. Each of your Facebook campaigns should correspond with an objective.

Ad Sets

The new Facebook campaign structure helps streamline your ad campaigns. Once your campaign objective is locked down, you can start creating your ad sets. Each of your ad sets should be organized by audience segment. This is key, consider who you want to target and why. There are multiple ways to do this, such as by age range, location, devices, or interests. Your ad will perform better if you target interests similar to your business. For example, if you’re an online store that sells jewellery, target ads to users who have interests in the following: Fashion brands, style blogging, Etsy jewellery stores etc. In this section of the dashboard, you are able to see how much you are spending on each ad set and you can optimize the commercial accordingly.

Ads

Within each of your ad sets (targeted audience) you can launch a range of ads for each one, so instead of showing the same images and text, you can incorporate video into the ad to give the ad set more variation.

Facebook Video Ads

Firstly, when creating a video ad for Facebook, consider your call to action and have it in line with the overall objective of your Facebook ad set, i.e. use the same segments and targeting. Video uploading comes at the ad point of the campaign structure, you can also add an extra call to action if you wish through Facebook, and a thumbnail image.

For additional Facebook video ad FAQs click here. Or if you need a video, visit the Viddyad website to see how you can create a video commercial online.

Facebook give advertisers a wealth of tools, so take advantage of them.

Page Insights

With any social media strategy, results need to be measured on a daily basis. Page Insights will give breakdowns of the following:

Data on individual posts

Overall page engagement

Audience data

Facebook Ad Manager

As described above, the ads manager will be your central hub when running Facebook campaigns. Check this on a daily basis to see how your ads are performing.

Audience Network

The Facebook audience network allows app developers to monetize their apps with Facebook. For more info, click here.